Dot Hack EPIC
by alliance
Summary: From The One Sin to Twilight, a female player of The World tries to figure out why she has what she has and what it is used for. WARNING! Contains SPOILERS for the books as well as the anime and games. Chapter 3 up
1. DAYLIGHT

Disclaimer: I do not own .hack/ or any of the characters from the animes, games, or books or 'The World'. I DO claim Jo Velez & her family, Astral, and these stories. Also, I'll be slipping some descriptions in from the books at times. Those will be denoted by single quotes ', _italics_, and the source of the description in parenthesees( ).

DAYLIGHT

Jo was so excited. She had just gotten her computer upgraded as well as had 'The World' installed upon it. It was January 2010, still winter break for the American girl. This ment staying up late and playing with anyone she could meet from all over the world! Booting up her terminal, she watches as the default ALTIMIT OS background is pulled up as The World is initialized. She was a new player, so she had to find a character model. At least for her the name was easy enough, and it wasn't taken, either! Giddy with eagerness, Jo scrolls through the classes, finally settling onto three to choose from: Blademaster, Heavyblade, and Twin Blade. Sure, most girls probly went for the Heavyblade or Wavemaster, but Jo didn't like mages overly well, and she wasn't sure about that huge weapon. 'Ok, two left.' she thinks to herself. Smiling happily, she makes her choice. The available models appeared, and she made her choice, adjusting the colors with a smile unto herself. "This's going to be so cool!" she says, finalizing her character. As the login screen came up, she switches to her Face-Mounted Display and pulls it on, her guidebook within her grasp. "I hope the world's prepared for Astral."

* * *

Her avatar materialized in the world, a female blademaster with a night-like theme to her. Astral's eyes were a bright yellow, like a cat's, a stark contrast to her midnight-blue hair. At least her dark clothing was more fitting to the dark hair. Astral wore a long, black coat speckled and slashed with dots and lines of white. Her legs were covered with a pair of... what were they called back in mideival days? breeches? Astral giggled a little, thinking of the word, drawing the glances from a few nearby players. Trying to smile it off, she types the command on her keyboard, using her controller to slowly move away. 'Reading the manual DOES have it's benefits, after all.' she muses to herself. After taking a look around the city, she starts back towards the Chaos Gate. The city really was an amazing place, but she wanted to get out and explore the levels! As the menu for the area selection starts to pop up, a rather-impressive-looking male blademaster approaches her. Torn from the selection, Astral turns towards him, the command for a greeting being typed quickly.

"Hello, is there something I can help you with?" she asks, causing the blademaster to smile.

"I see that you are new, but that you are at least polite." he replies. His appearance was odd, but with the ways to customize your avatar, Astral didn't think it'd be too hard to recognize this guy if she ever saw him again. '_His upper body was a ball of muscles covered only by a harness-belt and a piece of heavy shoulder armor. He carried his sword sheathed on his back._ A white X-like symbol was painted over his chest and face. _The white paint stood out in deep contrast to his dark green skin and copper-colored hair. _His midsection and lower arms were a more normal fleshy-tone, but the rest was green'(AI Buster).

"Uhh... yeah, I am." she nods, a slight blush crossing over her cheeks in the real world.

"I would like to offer my assistance in helping to level you up. My friend is not here yet, and I need to burn some time before he does show up." Looking up at him, that was when Astral first noticed the player's name over his avatar.

"I think... actually... err... well, yes, thank you!" she finally descides to trust him. She'd played a few MMORPGs(Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) before Pluto's Kiss, and had fallen victim to PKers(Player-Killers) a few times. The rulebook for 'The World' did not ban that sort of behavour, so she was going to be sure to keep on her guard. Within seconds of her answer, a message flashes across her display. Opening the message, it was the blademaster's member adress. Sending her own to him, he immediately invited her into his party, and Astral couldn't help but to accept. His name, Orca, along with his stats and a picture of his avatar appears in the lower-left of her screen.

"It is a pelasure to offer my assistance to you, Astral." he says, bowing a bit. This caused her to smile in the real world, and she bows lower.

"It's all mine, Orca." she replies happily. Before they set into the field, Orca switches to Party Chat and explains a bit more about the commands. Typing in the command for nodding, her avatar does so.

After several hours, but what only seems like mere minutes to Astral, she has leveled up quite a bit, especially for a newbie. At level ten, she was much less likely to die from the newbie areas.

"Thank you, Orca." she says happily to him as they return to the Root Town. Once there, she gives Orca a small wave and says she needs to get some sleep. Once Astral saves, she logs out and finally realizes it's well after midnight.

* * *

Giving a deep sigh, Jo rubs her hands over her face, laying the FMD beside the keyboard. "God, that was so fun!" she says happily, standing and streatches. "So much to do, so little time. But I can see Orca tomorrow. Heh, first day, ten levels, and a new friend. This game's great!" she says as she starts to change into her pajamas. Flicking her long, odd-colored hair out of her nightshirt, she crawls into bed. "Tomorrow I'll have even more fun on my own!" she giggles before turning off the light and going to sleep. 

The next morning, Jo was up and moving about even before her parents, which was odd in itself because it was noon when she did wake. After getting to the bathroom and out of the shower, she sits on her bed, brushing the tangles from the night's dreams and such from her hair. It was wierd to her, the white streaks and occasional single long strand of the white hair amongst the otherwise black field. Once she was done getting ready, and eating breakfast of course, she returns to her room and logs into The World. Raising an eyebrow, Jo noticed she had an email from Orca, stating that he wanted to introduce her to his friend he was talking about last night. Giggling a little, she enters into the Root Town of Mac Anu, the sight one she, as a newbie, would not know about just yet.

* * *

As Astral materialized near the Chaos Gate, she was immediately overrun by goblins and other low-leveled enemies. "W-what the?" she had been completely off guard, but was soon able to destroy the low-leveled monsters. Taking a couple of her healing potions to replentish her health, she begins to start clearing what monsters she could find and could handle. Surprise overcame her, though, as she nears the central bridge of the city. Atop it were fighting a large demon-looking monster along with a longarm and a blademaster, as well as several mid-level characters. Once she was able to get a better look, Astral recognized the blademaster as Orca, the one that had helped her the previous day. As she started towards him, the final blow is struck by the longarm and the demon dies. The mid-levels behind the two begin to grumble amongst themselves. The blademaster appeared to be saying something to the longarm, who ignores him and flees across the bridge, ducking into a building. Watching this strange man, Astral couldn't help but to think she saw a small, child-like figure following him. "So odd..." she says, shaking her head. Orca and another blademaster, this one clad in what looked like a blue bodysuit with armor over his shoulders and around his waist, approach over the bridge. "Hey Orca!" Astral says happily, turning to greet her friend. 

"Hello there, Astral. It is pleasant to meet you again." he smiles back. "This is the friend of mine I was waiting for yesterday. Balmung, this is Astral." Balmung looked a bit irritated to her, but he nodded. His eyes and throughts were elsewhere, or rather, his eyes were where the man with the child-like figure following him had disappeared to, and most likely his thoughts were on him.

"Orca, that man. Remember." Balmung says after a moment.

"Oh, right. Please, excuse us, Astral." Orca bows slightly, Astral returning it to them both, then waves them goodbye. Looking at the other players, she asks a couple of the nearest ones about what had happened.

"The monthly invasion." one of the mid-levels that had fought the demon. "Every month there's an event on all servers where monsters invade. This was one of the toughest I've seen so far." he says. Nodding her thanks, Astral heads over for the saving NPC, then to the Chaos Gate. Inputting the three words, she heads off to a low-level area of fifteen. Orca had explained the previous day why they were going to harder places than she should've gone alone. Leveling up was alot easier with a level thirty-something at your side, and when you were at a level twenty area.

It had been such an amazing day, Astral couldn't believe her luck. Deciding to turn in early, she sold off her extra items and saved. "Ahh, if only everyday could be like this." she sighs, closing her eyes and logs out.

* * *

Jo yawns and leans back in her chair, streaching. "Orca is the awsomest person to know." she says to the empty room, standing. Looking around, she moves to get into her nightclothes and crawls into bed, happy to be sleeping. 

As dawn comes and starts to go, Jo still sleeps, up until 8:45. Waking, the dark-haired girl rubs her eyes and looks at her clock. Almost nine... what was supposed to happen at nine? Shrugging to herself, Jo brushes the hair from her face and closes her eyes for another few hours of sleep. At noon on the dot she woke again, her hair up in ruffles. Yawning and streatching big, the girl smacks her lips and gets up. She hadn't really spent much time just sitting and looking at her room since she'd known about her computer getting it's upgrade, as most her free time was online playing The World. Plopping into her chair, she logs in, using the terminal display until she was going to actually play. Opening up the BBS, she was surprised to see a thread titled 'The One Sin' by some guy named 'W. B. Yates'. Clicking it, Jo was more than surprised to read what was in it. "Orca cleared The One Sin!" she gasps. Even being a newbie she'd at least known about the hardest-to-date One Sin event. Quickly moving into the game, she wanted to congradulate Orca on the event.

* * *

Upon logging into The World as Astral, the FMD glitches, causing the colors to reverse for barely more than a second. Worried about her inventory, she sighs, happy that everything was still in place. Scrolling through, her eyes widen in the real world, one of the oddest items she'd ever seen was there: yromem.cyl. "A file extention?" she asks softly, re-reading the the titles of the items. 'Maybe they were rare event items?' Astral asks herself. Shrugging it off, she sends an email to Orca, congradulating him on clearing The One Sin. 

It was at that moment that the email was sent that Jo's mother calls from downstairs. Sighing heavily, she trudges down, looking at her. Because she was called away, Jo did not know that a pair of mysterious emails had been sent to her as well: one from a person named 'Helba', and the other was slightly scrambled with the only letters readable being 'Ly' at the beginning.

* * *

Alright, so this's .hack/EPIC/DAYLIGHT, the first chapter of a(hopefully) long .hack/ fanfic. I intend to have it span from AI Buster to Legend of the Twilight Bracelet and a bit beyond. 


	2. FORBIDDEN

Disclaimer: I do not own .hack/ or any of the characters from the animes, games, or books or 'The World'. I DO claim Jo Velez & her family, Astral, and these stories. Also, I'll be slipping some descriptions in from the books at times. Those will be denoted by single quotes ', _italics_, and the source of the description in parenthesees( ).

FORBIDDEN

Jo was sitting alone in her room, leaned back in her computer chair. The time was fast approaching when this 'Helba' had said she was going to come to her. Ten minutes left. Taking deep breaths, the girl begins looking around her room, wondering if she should or should not meet the woman, taking in the sights of her all-too-familiar room. The walls were a nice tanned color, not striking out at her like a brighter color would, but not as hurting as a darker one either. The bed had similar sheets and blanket, save for a couple shades darker than the walls, an almost muddy brown color on the blanket. Jo would spend the remaining time she had left absorbing in her room, liking it. Her head snaps towards the alarm clock at the head of her bed when it's music started playing. Two minutes left. Collecting her thoughts, Jo logs into The World and pulls her FMD over her eyes, wondering exactly what she was doing.

* * *

As Astral's avatar materializes into the root town, she notices something very strange. "This... is not Mac Anu..." she whispers, slowly walking around the distorted town. The buildings looked to her to be just dropped there, alleyways leading off but soon became narrow. The ground itself looked to be distorted, dank and moldy. Slowly she moves into the strange area, her hands on her sword in case any monster was going to appear. Instead, once Astral came to the central area of the town, a woman gated in. The woman was a Wavemaster clad in a white dress, purple triangular marks upon it. A large helmet-like structure was upon her head, colored and designed as the woman's clothes, hiding the eyes behind a red visor trimmed in gold. 

"You stand in Net Slum, Astral." the woman speaks.

"Net... Slum? Hey! How did you know my name, and how did you get my email adress?" Astral demands after shaking off the initial shock of the Wavemaster's appearance. She remained silent at the question, instead she turns and raises her staff, a mostly slim white-colored weapon with a hovering ring at the top, a large black orb below it, and two additional rings below the orb.

"You have heard of the Epitaph?" she asks, drawing a slow nod from Astral. "Things are coming to pass that could become dangerous. Do you think that you can handle yourself at your current state?"

"It... it depends." she says shakily. Watching where the Wavemaster's staff was pointed, a deep red cloak was pulled down towards them.

"On?" the cloak falls into the other woman's hand as she turns back to Astral.

"I don't know if I am strong enough to do anything." she looks from the cloak up to the woman's face, recognizing it now as the pic that had been sent to her with the email from Helba. "But I will become stronger, Helba." Nodding, Helba takes something from her inventory and presents it and the cloak to Astral. The cloak she immediately equips, her hands holding the other item in them. "What is this? I found something in my inventory when I logged in the other day like this. What's 'ecifircas.cyl'? And why is there a file extention?"

"You ask too much of one that can not answer. All will be revealed. There are other items like that in The World. Find them. You will have your answers then. Do not say anything of this place." Helba says, waving her staff towards Astral, causing the girl to be removed from Net Slum and to Mac Anu.

As Astral was returned to the Root Town, she paces over towards one of the corners near the Chaos Gate. She hadn't noticed quite yet, but her avatar had changed. The black coat had become red, the white stars and slashes were now mingled with black ones, and the cloak hung over them as well. A form soon approaches her and, as she looks up, smiles. "Astral now clad in blood?" the voice of Orca the blademaster, Descendant of Fianna, asks.

"Blood? What do you mean?" she asks, getting up, switching her view from first person to third, a soft gasp coming through her mic as she finds the changes done to her image. "Woah... that's wierd... Oh, hey, Orca!" Astral smiles up towards her friend, remembering the words of Helba. "You solved the One Sin! Congradulations!" Chuckling, Orca nods his thanks.

"It was a hard battle. It took some thought, but Balmung and I finally realized the strategy to winning." he says.

"I'll bet. Huh? Aww man... My mom's calling me for lunch, I'll try to get on again when I can, alright?"

"Of course. Enjoy your meal, Astral." Nodding, she waves and logs out, her mind dwelling on the strange items as well as the meeting with Helba.

* * *

Laying her FMD onto her desk, Jo rubs her fingers over her eyes. She'd never thought that it was able to change your character's appearance, much less in-game. And then there were those two wierd items that Helba told her to keep secret. What were they, and why were they supposed to be secret? She descided to think on them later. For now, her parents were yelling at her to get downstairs and into the car so they can go out to eat.

* * *

kulaguy2- So sorry about the naming thing. I had been talking with a friend about the Dot Hack series a couple hours prior to posting the story, and she calls Twilight Dusk. Yes, the little glitches about Lyco are part of the storyline. As for the bit about W. B. Yates/Yeats, I took it from the book AI Buster itself. Maybe Hokuto translated it herself, huh?  



	3. WEEK'S END and TWINBLADE

Disclaimer: I do not own .hack/ or any of the characters from the animes, games, or books or 'The World'. I DO claim Jo Velez & her family, Astral, and these stories. Also, I'll be slipping some descriptions in from the books at times. Those will be denoted by single quotes ', _italics_, and the source of the description in parenthesees( ).

WEEK'S END

_God, this sucks..._ Jo thinks, plopping down into her computer chair and boots it up. Logging into The World, she opens her email and sends one off to Orca. "Tomorrow we got to pack, and then we're moving. This sucks so badly. At least it's to Mom's family, so I just have to worry about jetlag for a few days. I don't know when I'll be able to access again, but I hope it doesn't take too long. I'll see you when I can, Orca. Astral" with that, and since it was in the middle of the night, Jo closed out The World and turned off her monitor. _I can always try their server during the day. It'll actually be interesting to see who I get. _She thinks with a smile.

Things never go as planned, however. Jo's packing was forced to begin with her computer, so she couldn't even login to see Orca's reply if he'd sent one. The entire day was spent with her family, helping them pack when she was finished. Matt, her little brother, was easy enough. His room was basically a giant library, lots of mangas and books laying in the shelves. Sometimes Jo wondered if one of the two of them were adopted, and she'd really hoped it was him more often than not. Her parents, however, both Matt and Jo had to help the pair. So many books of their father's, and all the dishes and things. But, it was at least half worth it.

Early two days later, Jo and Matt are woken by their father. The day of the move was upon them, and the movers had just arrived. Intrusting the men to get everything into the truck, the family heads to the airport. "So, I guess all those hours you spent on the computer won't go to a waste, huh, Jo?" Matt asks, looking at his sister with a smile. "All those hours talking to those Japanese people. Guess I should've thought about something like that."

"You mean you don't have any Japanese-to-English textbooks in your room?" Jo jokes, staring out the window. "Man, this's going to suck so badly. We'll be like tourists over there. The only one that'll be comfortable would be Mom. God, she'll be so embaressed!"

"Yeah, you said it, Sis." her brother agrees, looking across the vehicle and out her room. "So, does this 'Orca' dude know you're coming to live in Japan?"

"Don't be silly, Matt. Odds are we won't even be living in the same city. I'll be willing to bet he lives at the other end of the island, too."

TWINBLADE

The schoolyear passed quickly, and Jo was finally able to log back into The World. As to be expected from a long absence, she had a pair of e-mails from Orca, but also several from that strange person. The first from Orca was dated back to when she'd e-mailed him about them moving, his second saying he hope'd she'd be getting back soon. The emails from the strange one, that 'Ly' person... they were all scrambled, as with the first one. Straining her eyes, Jo tries to understand what was written there, but all she could pick out were those two items with the file extentions. The last three from the person, though, had only three words in each, along with a server. Writing them down, Jo ponders contacting Helba and asking her about the items again, to see if she'd heard or knew anything new. Interrupting her thoughts, however, was a message coming in from Orca asking if she was in yet. With a soft chuckle, Jo sends her reply, then logs herself on as Astral.

* * *

Looking around Mac Anu, Astral shakes her head, seeing that the city was the same as ever. "Wonder where Orca is?" she asks herself, moving herself around a tad akwardly, re-familiarizing herself with the controls of the game. Before she can really do anything, however, her vision is covered by the face of a male twinblade with green hair. "W-what the heck?" Astral stares into his eyes, a bit startled. 

"Hello there! Say, you looks strong! You wanna form a party?" he asks with a half-smirk, half-smile on his face. "C'mon! Lemme have your member's address!" Taking a step back, Astral's player briefly switches from first-person to third, then back.

"Well... I'm actually supposed to meet someone. But he hasn't shown up yet. I guess we could go to a dungeon until he lets me know he's here." she says, wondering why she was getting a slight eerie feeling from the twinblade before her.

"That's great! I'm Sora the Twinblade!" he says with a jovial smile. THe next sound that greets Astral is the dinging of his member's address. Sending hers in exchange, she was quickly pounded with his invite to the party. Smiling a bit in real life, Astral accepts and sees the twinblade's level. "Alright. You got anywhere to go?"

"Yes... actually. I heard there's a wierd rare item at the Hidden and Forbidden Field of Water on this server." she says, motioning to the Chaos Gate.

The pair soon find themselves in the field, the entire map seeming to pulse with a wierd, red hue.

"Woah! This's awsome!" Sora says cheerfully through his mic.

"Awsome to you, but it's very eerie... Hey! Do you see that?" Astral points at a white orb that was floating slightly above eye-level, but as Sora is called to it's presance, the orb disappears.

"I think so... a white willow-the-whisp. Didn't know they came as single enemies."

"C'mon!" she points, spotting the orb a bit further away. "I thinkwe should go to the dungeon. That'd be the best place for the item to be found." Agreeing, Sora and Astral both start towards the dungeon, the red-clad blademaster keeping her eyes on the orb, not paying attention to the ninja-like twinblade behind her.

As the two reach the lowest level of the dungeon, Sora pauses for a moment, but Astral doesn't notice and proceedes into the room with the Gott Statue. Opening the treasure, she reads quickly the items she'd found. A pair of Silver Grunties, which was a VERY big surprise to AStral since they were said to be fairly rare, and another of those odd items with a file extention. "Rae.cyl" she whispers. However, the next thing she knows, she has a pair of twinblade weapons at her neck. "W-what the hell?" she demands, looking over her shoulder at Sora.

"Give me the items." he says. Wordlessly, she hands over the two Silver Grunties. "There's always three. What else was there?" he demands. Keeping her lips closed, Sora demands it again. "What else was there!" Silence. "Hmph." and with that, Sora draws both his weapons across AStral's neck, killing her character, and causing the game to reload.

"Damn him! Damnit, damn!" Astral curses, looking at the wierd items. Even though she hadn't saved when she was PK'd, she still retained the rae.cyl. Saving and loging off, she was in a foul mood as her trust had been betrayed by the twinblade.

* * *

Kaitlin-well, i feel really honored that you feel inspired to write more because of this fic. i'll continue to do my best to help!

kulaguy2-i noticed. i grabbed the 'Twilight' manga set and saw that. kinda sad that they do that. mebby Del Ray should've done the dot hack series...


End file.
